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Russell Holcomb: CU football -- Do damage control and rehire Coach Jon Embree

Posted:
11/30/2012 01:00:00 AM MST

As a University of Colorado graduate and 30-year Boulder resident and Buff fan I am appalled by the firing of Jon Embree. He inherited a program that was knocking at death's door.

I liken it to the economy Barack Obama inherited as president. It was simply destined to get worse, before it got better. Jon Embree wasn't even given a chance to fail. I've seen almost every Buff game for the last 30 years and in my humble opinion the overall size, speed, talent and experience level on this team represents the nadir of the program, at least relative to the competition that we faced. I hate to be harsh about it, and I loved the heart and personality of this year's team... but there it is.

Next year's team is going to be bigger, stronger, faster, more experienced and more talented. Not to mention have a huge chip on its shoulder. Whatever coach comes in is going to get three to five wins out of that team. Next year should have been the season to begin to judge Jon Embree's progress. If he didn't get those three to five wins then we'd have a legitimate debate. I never expected this team to contend for bowl eligibility until Embree's fourth year. Then I truly believed that under this coaching staff we would be a dangerous team by his fifth year.

I concur with Coach Bill McCartney in much of what he said in his letter. Especially about his opinion that Jon Embree is destined to be a great coach. I'd like to see him re-hired and Mike Bohn fired immediately. This inexplicable and shadowy decision has hurt the program in both the short run and the long run.

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You basically lose a recruiting season every time you change head coaches. And we've just lost a good one. I also don't think we're going to get a Jim Tressel type to come to CU regardless of the salary. At the end of the day they're going to be forced to take a chance on another unproven coach. I liked Embree as an unproven coach just fine.

I also don't get the argument that now that we've suddenly got the Pac-12 money that we need to fire our coach so we can hire one that costs four times as much. It's a stupid motivation for making a change. Especially when you consider that the incoming coach is destined to struggle.

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